God's fantasy islands

By Frank Barrett, The Mail on Sunday

The Auckland skyline is a long way from Middle Earth

Passengers boarding the Interislander ferry at Wellington are confronted with a rather unusual warning: 'No Pig Semen!' This was one of a number of moments on my fortnight travelling around New Zealand when Britain - which in many ways often felt so near - suddenly couldn't have been further away.

New Zealand is like one of those planets often visited by the Starship Enterprise. A place that looks like Earth, with natives who are handsome and welcoming, but where Mr Spock warns everyone to keep their phasers set to stun in case the locals suddenly turn into Klingons.

For when you make the 24-hour journey around the planet from London to New Zealand via Los Angeles, you do more than cross the International Date Line - you enter another world. This becomes apparent at Auckland International Airport where arriving passengers are officially sniffed by a beagle. 'Drugs?' 'No, mate,' said a passenger next to me in the queue. 'Apples.'

New Zealand Customs are perpetually on the hunt for illicit fruit. Being caught in possession of a concealed Cox's Orange Pippin seems to be a capital offence. I don't think they're even keen on anybody bringing in fruit Spangles. Thank heavens, I thought later, that I remembered to leave the pig semen at home - otherwise my holiday might have been over before it had begun.

Which would have been a shame because New Zealand is the world's greatest holiday destination. That's not just my opinion - it regularly tops popularity polls. This isn't surprising because the country looks like the work of some smart design consultancy - as if God realised he had space in the South Pacific for a new development and wanted to do something a bit special for holidaymakers.

While the layout of the North Island is impressive (imagine a Mediterranean Pembrokeshire with hot springs and the odd volcano), the designers hit their straps with their ideas for the South Island. You can almost imagine their pitch: 'What we've done with our concept for the South Island is a bit of a homage to the scenic grandeur of Europe: Norwegian fjords, Alpine peaks and glaciers, Scottish lochs and we've kept the Scottish theme with the people, the puritan work ethic, the place names - Dunedin, Invercargill, Bannockburn.

'It's a landscape perfect for activity holidays: walking, biking, sailing, white-water rafting, hang-gliding - and wait till you see what we've got with this idea we're calling bungee-jumping. You can watch great rugby. And we're going to provide perfect growing conditions for some of the world's best wines. We're also catching the 21st Century zeitgeist - no GM crops, no nukes.

' Wildlife? 'Good tourist stuff: whales, dolphins, seals, albatrosses, penguins but nothing nasty - no snakes or anything unpleasant. I think you'll be impressed with the work we're doing on something provisionally called the kiwi bird.' What about pig semen? 'We're banning it!'

New Zealand also has the benefits - for us at least - of driving on our side of the road and speaking English (albeit with confusingly articulated vowels - fish and chips, for example, becomes 'fush and chups' while Air New Zealand emerges as 'Ear New Zealand' - but you soon get the hang of it).

And, unlike Australia, India or the United States, which you might tour for six months and still not see everything, New Zealand can be comfortably tackled in a gloriously relaxed fortnight. It is a country roughly the size of the UK but with a population of just four million, not much bigger than that of Wales. New Zealand has a population density of 14 people per square kilometre, making it the world's 199th least-crowded nation (by comparison the UK has 244 people fighting for each square kilometre of space - making us the world's 49th most crowded nation).

And parts of New Zealand are much more uncrowded than even these statistics suggest - a quarter of the population lives in Auckland in the North Island while just one million inhabit the whole of the South Island. On one day in the South Island, for example, we drove for 100 miles on a main road and passed probably no more than 30 cars. Perhaps one of the most extraordinary things for the modern traveller is that you can walk on to a domestic airline service without running the gamut of security checks - not even so much as a metal detector. It's as if worldwide terrorism had never happened.

Not logical, Captain, as Mr Spock might have said. The dislocation is enhanced by the time difference - in our winter, New Zealand's summer, they are 13 hours ahead of us. Mind you, some suggest that when you arrive in Auckland, you need to set your clock back 30 years. This is true only in so far as life is slower, gentler, friendlier and more courteous (although, by contrast, New Zealand's drivers are surprisingly wild and dangerous). Its growing links with Asia and the rest of the South Pacific have transformed New Zealand from a pale imitation of provincial Britain into a more confident, thriving, cosmopolitan place.

While you can still dine handsomely on meat pies if you wish, you are more likely to encounter restaurants which serve Pacific Rim fusion cuisine and offer superb local wines (the chardonnays, sauvignon blancs, pinots and rieslings are among the world's best). And all at excellent value for money.

Given its obvious charms, it is not surprising that over the past 20 years the country has been expecting a tourist boom of the sort that has engulfed its near neighbour Australia. But while we are now served a constant diet of Australiana - in recent times everything from Mad Max and Neighbours to Kylie Minogue and Nicole Kidman - New Zealand has registered as a fainter blip on our international radar. Sport (and rugby) aside, for generations New Zealand's associations have been limited to the likes of lamb, Anchor butter, Braeburn apples and kiwi fruit (not really kiwi and, dare one say it, not quite a fruit).

But now, 20 years after the same thing happened to Australia, New Zealand is becoming 'cool'. This is largely the work of one man - film director Peter Jackson, whose Lord Of The Rings trilogy is effectively an extended tourist promotion for his home country.

A thriving Lord Of The Rings tourist industry - centred largely on the capital Wellington and, in the South Island, Queenstown - demonstrates the effect the films have had on visitor numbers. For many backpackers, for example, where better to head than Middle Earth itself? Visit the delightful Miramar Peninsula, the Wellington suburb where Jackson has his home and studios, and it's easy to see why he chooses to stay here rather than decamp to Hollywood (and why his actors are happy to base themselves in Wellington - feel the 'Wellywood' vibe, for example, while enjoying a flat white coffee at Elijah Wood's favourite Chocolate Fish Cafe prettily set beside the sea).

Wellington is probably New Zealand's most intriguing city - busy, handsome and full of surprises. If you think New Zealand sports fans are dour ruggerbuggers, take a trip to the annual February IRB sevens tournament, which is a sort of Mardi Gras where nearly all spectators come in fancy dress ranging from gangs of Marilyn Monroes (male and female) to 'policemen' in Speedos. Twickenham was never like this.

It's three hours to the South Island by ferry from Wellington to Picton across the Cook Strait, where we were treated to a brief display by a pod of whales. Within minutes of leaving Picton we were in the renowned wine region of Marlborough, where signs point the way to names familiar from restaurant wine lists and a million supermarket shelves - Cloudy Bay, Montana, Spy Valley, Stoneleigh.

Most of the wineries offer free tastings and many have excellent restaurants (we had a wonderful lunch at the Montana winery). There are also excellent wineries around Auckland - on Waiheke Island, 30 minutes by ferry from the city centre, Stonyridge Vineyard is one of New Zealand's top wine producers, famed for its excellent Cabernet.

You could spend a very pleasant fortnight in New Zealand doing nothing but wine-tasting. But there are so many extraordinary different pleasures to enjoy. What was my favourite? A helicopter ride from Rotorua to the volcanic White Island, a suphurous landscape of steamy blow holes and bubbling mud that seemed curiously reminiscent of the Clangers.

In Queenstown, in the South Island, we flew with Heliworks Queenstown and pilot Alfie Speight, who was principal pilot for Peter Jackson during the filming of the Lord Of The Rings films. Within half-an-hour of leaving the baking summer heat of Queenstown we were standing on top of a snowy mountain with one of the most fabulous views in New Zealand spread out in front of us.

Alfie uncorked a bottle of a gloriously fruity Lindauer sparkling white while I threw snowballs. Memories are made of this. Alfie told me he was also involved with the filming of the 2003 film Peter Pan. As he whisked his helicopter up and over needle-sharp ridges and skirted mountain peaks, it felt for all the world as if we were flying with Peter Pan on some extraordinary escapade.

In the words of Peter Pan, the whole of New Zealand is an 'awfully big adventure'. Captain Hook or Captain Kirk? You'll have to see for yourself. But leave the pig semen at home, please.

Travel facts

Frank Barrett travelled to New Zealand on Air New Zealand. Splash out and fly in comfort on the new lie-flat bed in Business Premier class, where fares start from £2,776. Fares for the new Pacific Premium Economy cabin (the only premium economy seating on flights to New Zealand) start from £1,380 and in Pacific Economy from £780. Visit www.airnewzealand.co.uk or call 0800 028 4149.

Tailor Made Travel (0845 456 8050, www.tailor-made.co.uk) offers bespoke holidays to New Zealand. An 11-night holiday taking in Waiheke Island, Auckland, Rotorua,Wellington, Kaikoura and Queenstown costs from £2,999 per person based on two sharing.

It also includes nine days'car hire, international economy flights with Air New Zealand London-Auckland-London and domestic flights with Air New Zealand Auckland to Rotorua, Rotorua to Wellington, Christchurch to Queenstown and Queenstown to Auckland. All pre-payable taxes are also included.The price is based on travel between April 15 and June 15,2006.

Upgrades to Business Premier and Pacific Premium Economy are available. For further information visit www.newzealand.com or call 0906 601 3601 (60p per minute).